Culture

Pikachu Cake, I Don’t Choose You!

Things don’t always go according to plan when you cook meals—that’s normal. Your end result doesn’t always look like the snazzy pictures on the recipe instructions, or the boxes containing the ingredients. But this monstrosity that someone baked is something else. Normally, Pikachu is supposed to be a cute monster—like in the picture above. Recently,…

Some of Japan’s Most Wonderful And Strange Cosplay

Today, Osaka’s geek district Nipponbashi held a big street festival. The area’s main drag was closed off to cars, allowing cosplayers to roam free and cause all sorts of cosplay chaos. Every year at this event in particular, the costumes get more and more outrageous (though, there are some old favorites on display below). Either…

The End Of The World Doesn’t Have To Be Ugly

The Last Of Us’ singleplayer DLC, Left Behind, continued the main game’s legacy of taking place in some beautiful locations. Well, relative to the fact everyone’s dead and everthing’s busted, at least. One of the people to thank for that is artist John Sweeney, whose work on the main game we featured last year. Here…

C.O.S.P.L.A.Y. POWER

Sorry for that headline. I get terrible flashbacks, you see… This was taken at last week’s All-Con. Photographer is Neither Noir, the turtles are Turtle Power Entertainment, Casey Jones is Zander Yurami and Shredder, as he should be, is a mystery.

Demonic Puppy Needs To Be A Boss In Dark Souls III

Paul Canavan is art director at Scottish indie developer Blazing Griffin Studios, the guys who are probably most notable at the moment for picking up the rights to The Ship. You can see more of Paul’s work at his personal site To see the larger pics in all their glory (or, if they’re big enough,…

Milk and Cookies: remember those scrumptious-looking milk and cookie shots? You can make them too, using this guide/recipe by karinsurance.

A boatload of Metal Gear cosplayers, hanging out with series creator Hideo Kojima. As you do.

Track: Awake | Album: Awake | Artist: Tycho Kotaku Soundtrack is a selection of the stuff we’re listening to – and gaming to – at the moment.

Firewatch Is Looking Very, Very Pretty

All we’ve seen so far of Firewatch is some art. Usually that’s not much, but that’s OK, because Fine Art is a feature about…art. And rarely do we get stuff that looks as good as this. Internet-famous designer and artist Olly Moss, whose work has appeared on stuff like the Resistance 3 box art, is…

Yes, Handsome Jack, You’re Very Handsome

Photographer Mike Dosik tells Kotaku he has a “very dramatic style”. He’s not kidding. Most of his shots are up-close, and also skip busy backgrounds in favour of keeping the focus entirely on the cosplayer. You can see more of Mike’s work at his personal site KINGDOM HEARTS | dookie4617 FROZEN | Chibi-Nekos BORDERLANDS |…

Ah, So This Is The Guy Who Made One Of Last Year’s Best Jokes

Tal Peleg is senior cinematics animator at Naughty Dog, where he worked on The Last Of Us. If you ever wondered where the wonderful Joel-does-the-Banderas animation came from, well, Tal’s your man. Prior to that, Tal worked at Visceral Games (Dead Space), and also did some stuff for space viking flick Outlander. In his spare…

The Fastest Ocarina Of Time Player Beat His Own World Record

Not content with his previous world-record speedrun of Ocarina of Time, noted speedrunner Cosmo Wright is now back with a faster, more impressive playthrough of Zelda—and you can watch it here. The speedrun clocks in at eighteen minutes and fifty six seconds (EDIT: versus the previous record of 19:00 held by skater82297, and before that,…

Madonna Dressed As Daenerys Targaryen. For Real.

Your eyes do not deceive you. This is Madonna, dressed not as an ageing pop star, but as Game of Thrones’ Mother of Dragons herself, Daenerys Targaryen. And while she probably had some very professional help putting everything together, the end result is still pretty impressive. She wore the costume to help celebrate the Jewish…

The Most Badass Weapons In Final Fantasy

As cool as the Buster sword and Gunblades are, they’re not the only memorable weapons in Final Fantasy, you know. IGN here walks us through their pick of the 15 coolest weapons in Final Fantasy, though I’m curious as to what y’all would vote as the best weapons in the game. Mind, I don’t mean…

A Pirate’s Life For Me (And These Guys)

Johan Grenier is a French character artist who has done work for companies like Ubisoft, Paizo and Privateer Press. In his time at Ubisoft, Grenier contributed to Assassin’s Creed Brotherhood, Revelations, III and IV. You can see more of Johan’s work at his personal site To see the larger pics in all their glory (or,…

The New Godzilla Movie Will (Sadly) Not Look Like This

Mike K runs eleventhphotograph, a cosplay photography studio. He was most recently snapping pics at Katsucon last month, and those pics were great You can see a selection of them below, with a lot more at Mike’s site Living in Canada, Mike works in TV as a producer and is a freelance photographer in his…

The Week in Games: Second Son Of A Second Son

Every week video game publishers release video games into the retail and digital marketplace. What makes this week different? Nothing, really. Oh look, it’s Infamous: Second Son! Nice. TUESDAY, MARCH 18 Deus Ex: The Fall (PC) Final Fantasy X-X2 HD (Vita, PS3) Luftrausers (PC, Mac, PS3) Metal Gear Solid V: Ground Zeroes (PS4, Xbox One,…

Pi Ain’t Nothing Special

As Kotaku‘s new weekend editor I am now off Thursday and Friday, so I missed the celebration of Pi Day on 3/14. I felt bad about it. Then I saw Vihart‘s latest anti-Pi rant. Now I feel much better, thanks to colored markers rapidly sketching out Pi’s overwhelming plainness. I think the whole affair is…

Sunday Comics: A Time And Place For Rainbow Ponies

Welcome to Kotaku‘s Sunday Comics, your weekly roundup of the best webcomics. The images enlarge if you click on the magnifying glass icon. Nerf NOW!! by Josué Pereira. Published March 14. Read more of Nerf NOW!! Awkward Zombie by Katie Tiedrich. Published March 10. Read more of Awkward Zombie Penny Arcade by Jerry Holkins and…

The Cookie Dough Oreos Are Lying To Us. Why We Don’t Care.

The recently released (and recently reviewed) limited edition Cookie Dough Oreos do not contain actual uncooked cookie dough. What they do contain, is a clever bit of mental marketing called ‘permission’. Permission is the art of using certain cues to convince the consumer that, while the product they are putting into their mouth does not…